Sport

Young North Koreans' bid for freedom

Updated
June 15, 2013 09:55:00

Each year, thousands of North Koreans risk their lives trying to flee the brutal regime in pursuit of freedom. But escaping the so-called hermit kingdom is only the first step in a long and perilous journey. A documentary team has now gone undercover to track the journey of a group of young North Korean defectors ... and the people smuggler they use.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Each year, thousands of North Koreans risk their lives trying to flee the brutal regime in pursuit of freedom.

But escaping from North Korea is only the first step in a long and perilous journey into South East Asia and ultimately, South Korea.

Many defectors get through to China, only to discover that the country is a form of purgatory where they're continually on the run and vulnerable to exploitation.

A documentary team has now gone undercover to track the journey of a group of young North Korean defectors, and the people smugglers they use.

Jane Norman spoke to the documentary's executive producer, Ann Shin.

JANE NORMAN: How do these people escape North Korea?

ANN SHIN: In the '90s when the famine first hit, you could almost escape on your own. You could escape into the northern border into China by crossing a little river. Of course, the border to South Korea is so heavily militarised it's just not an option.

But now, since security has been really heightened along the northern border, it's very, very difficult to get out. You have to have a lot of money to bribe guards at the border who can be trusted. And you have to work with a broker who knows the guards.

So, it's a costly endeavour. And even once you've paid a broker to bribe a guard, you still have to make it across the river alive and then run into Chinese territory.

And once they're in China it's a whole, it's a whole other ball of wax, you know, they're not free. In China they're considered illegal migrants and so, if they're caught by Chinese officials they're turned back to the North Korean authorities.

JANE NORMAN: How do they stay under the radar? I mean, what do they do once they're in China?

ANN SHIN: They try to, one, either get help from the Chinese Koreans who live in the northern part of China or to also try and make their way out of China through to a third country where they can seek safe asylum. And often that journey takes them through to South East Asia.

The unfortunate thing, the really tragic thing that happens, is that many North Koreans get exploited while they're in China because they have no status. They can't seek officials, they can't run to the police if someone's doing them any injustice.

And the biggest injustice that's happening is that many, many North Korean women are being trafficked. They're being sold to Chinese men as brides, so they're being sold into the sex industry in China.

JANE NORMAN: Your documentary tracks the journeys of a group of defectors, mainly female; what was some of their experiences?

ANN SHIN: One of the women were very, very shocked when they walked into their first mall. Now, some of them managed to live in China for months and years at a time. They live as these wives of these Chinese men and some of them learn Chinese.

So she said when she first walked into the Chinese mall, she was surprised that there was so much food in the shelves and in the grocery store. And she was also surprised to find that there was prepared food. She thought that it was fake.

Another woman talked about the journey into Laos. In the Laotian jungle, trekked over the second mountain with this Laotian guy, and she broke down in tears because she had left her family. She left her mother and her brother on the understanding that she would be the first one out but she would get her mother and brother out as well. But she realised, during the Laotian trek that her mother was too elderly to make the journey, that she would never see her mother again.